A kind of woman was born in China during the 1920s. The wildness of Western life, linked to the refounded welfare, invades the Orient and its fashion that was slowly seduced by the style “à la Garçonne”. The heavy make-up, the paper umbrellas, the kimono silk bindings give way to impalpable chiffon dresses, to less conspicuous make-up, to “boyish” hairstyles. And the first of the Chinese actresses, Anna May Wong, was making her way to Hollywood, destined to become a style icon for the whole world. Below for you a selection of images that testify to this social and clothing chinese revolution.

Chinese illustration from the 20s. Two female dancers wear a dress called Cheongsam, rivisited in Western look, typical of the Flapper Girls. The hair is short and in Garçonne style. T-Bar shoes

Ni Hongyan, Chinese film actress popular in the Chinese film industry in the late 1920s. Fashion Magazine and Amazing Belt (seems to be a modern Alaya!) for this beautiful girl in her swimsuit

Silk Socks, Waves Hairstyle and Cigarette for a smoking flapper

Huang Huilan wife of the Chinese diplomat Wellington Koo, popular in the western world as Madame Wellington Koo or Hui-lan Koo

still Madame Wellington Koo

Two asian ladies in 20s fashionable outfits

March 25, 1928. Here is Anna May Wong visiting Chicago. Trousers, Mary Jane shoes and Cloche hat for the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition

This text is taken from my book. The Macabre and the Grotesque in Fashion and in Costume. I wrote of a particularweird make-up fashion during the 1920s. The faces turned white, with their black-rimmed eyes underlined by thin, shapeless eyebrows with down-tending ends. The beading fashion was imported from Russian girls: small wax balls were attached to the ends of the eyelashes.

Cinema, Fashion, Music meet history. We are in 1996 and a chameleon-like Madonna wearing the clothes of Evita Peron, actress and beloved Argentine First Lady in the immediate post-war period. For the movie, directed by Alan Parker, Italy and France compete in the costumes room: the Roman tailoring Tirelli takes care of the wardrobe with Penny Rose, clothes and suits recreated on the model worn by Evita alternate with authentic ’40s and Dior’s New Look style gown for the evening with authentic high fashion masterpieces. The furs worn by Madonna are created by Fendi, for the fashion house a classic from the time of “Conversation Piece”. For the shoes, however, they remember Ferragamo, a brand loved by Peron in life. Nothing is therefore overlooked, the beautiful hairstyles of Martin Samuel complete an aspect whose result is extraordinary: the movie wins the Oscar and the costume designer, for the 85 dresses in the film, is awarded the BAFTA. And perhaps this great research work and reconstruction would have pleased Monsieur Christian Dior, who one day said:”The only queen I ever dressed was Eva Peron.”

She was a princess and her name was Irene Galitzine. As in a fairytale lived in a house just 50 kilometers from Moscow, surrounded by greenery and luxury, over 50 rooms, carpets, precious paintings. His father, when he went hunting in the woods, was followed by riding stirrups ready to serve him chilled champagne. The Russian Revolution was pressing, and the family of the Tsar would soon be exterminated (look Here for more). Like all Russian nobility, the Galitzines also fled seeking refuge in Europe. At the age of 14, the young Irene wanted to be a painter, or to try her diplomatic career, but her innate and overbearing taste for fashion and elegance prevailed. He began his career in Rome, together with his friend Simonetta Colonna di Cesarò, at the time Fabiani, who in 1946 presented his first collection. Sisters Fontana followed the first independent steps in the tailor’s shop as her Public Relator, her palace pajamas along with evening dresses soon became a uniform for the women of the international jet-set. In the rare image from my archive, Jackie Kennedy, along with Irene, sports a silk shantung minidress at the “La Cometa” theater in Rome. Only a few days after this worldly event, however, the court upheld the appeals of some creditors – mostly textile merchants – who boasted of credits from the fashion house, for a total of only 4 and a half million, of course, more than 2250 euro today, but still a ridiculous figure for an established designer like Galitzine. yet the bankruptcy trustee did not want to feel right, granted the designer only to carry out the dresses ordered by Queen Annamaria of Greece, after which the fable of the princess, a seamstress and stylist who had come from Russia, broke off. Undaunted, however, the elegant Galitzine did not give up and managed to reopen her own fashion house only two years later. The brand today is still existing and belongs mostly to a niche market, but that’s another story.

Princess Irene Galitzine strikes a pose in her atelier

What glamour is.

With Marella Agnelli during the opening of Galitzine Atelier

Harper’s Bazaar, Oct 1966

From my archive rare image of princess Irene Galitzine her with Jackie Kennedy wearing her couture creation in Rome. Year 1968 (copyright)

We are in 1927, cinema is silent, and Murnau chooses a very modern George O’Brien for the role of protagonist in his masterpiece film “Sunset: A song of two humans”. At his side, curiosity, Janet Gaynor, famous for being the first actress in history to win an Oscar, the same year of this movie. The film is poignant, those that hold with bated breath, unbalancing with violent passion between love and death, which tear the common life of a couple in its bucolic quiet. The devil overwhelms the existence of the couple in the role of Margaret Livingston, beautiful and emancipated city woman who drags with her the scent of modernity and perdition, pushing into a vortex of inescapable damnation the man who gives her seduced. Margaret thus personifies her time: the celebration of rhythm, chaos, metropolitan lights and cinema, which seduce but blind. She smoke cigarettes, she combs with impetuous her short hair who appear almost already in Punk style, she is in lingerie, after she wears a cloche hat and silk stockings. These are also images of modernity that open the film: a train, a ship, means of transport that allow travel, a theme that is a metaphor for life, which pervades the movie. The sun rises, it sets, and in doing so indolent neglects the joys and sorrows of those who inhabit the earth, life continues “sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet” as told by the film, through the story of its protagonists. The modern, the speed, the speed of existence and beauty are a memento mori, a vanitas that seduces thanks to the charm of evil and expresses itself with an assault on the peace of a family that lives on what the farm gives them, between nature that is a loving mother. Margaret falls into that stillness and fervently overthrows her sincere love; the sensual George succumbs to the flattery of the mantis coming from the noisy city, and meets her at night, by the lake. There she waits for him, wearing a black dress and has a beautiful made up face, artifact, lit by the moon, metaphor of night, of woman, antithesis of the sun, of light. Murnau frames this scene of tormented passion well, and arranges the two sinners on the shore of the lake, a further allegory that is lascivious contamination, and submerges the two lovers with perdition. “Tell me, are you all mine”? She asks and then devours him of kisses, and oppresses him with his diabolical plan: “sell the farm and come with me to the city” … “And my wife”? …. “Couldn’t she get drowned?”? This terrible writing tears the screen and then dissolves tragically. He would like to kill this perverse lover, but the writing “Come to Town” gets bigger and thunders in his thoughts, Margaret describes the sparkle of the modern world and dances in the moonlight, dancing a new dance, wild, tribal .The poor Janet is at home and cries, and hugs her child, desperate for having lost her beloved husband. She is the symbol of the past and of tradition, of rurality, of a healthy life, she does not wear clothes of her time, but those of a past age, her hair is gathered, tshe doesn’t wear make-up, the appearance it is in the Victorian style. Meanwhile, her husband has planned the fake accident: the boat overturned, Janet drowned, he saved thanks to a twig of bamboo reeds that meanwhile has already settled on the bottom of the small boat. He back home, and a light that becomes shadow appears on the wall and stretches out on the bed while exhausted, Janet sleeps: the window doors reflect a cross that covers the woman’s body, an appalling presage of an announced death. George observes his wife, and sees the water of the lake, murky and guilty, a water that was the symbol of the genesis and becomes that of the departure. The sun of a fateful day comes, George surprises his wife by inviting her to a boat trip, she leaps out of joy, she deludes him she really loves her, but the dog feels the deception, rebels, agitates helplessly. Janet wears her best dress, the white one, she has a stole, and she looks like a bride, we hear the sounds of a bell, tolling to death, the scene is of ruthless beauty. Once off he approaches to strangle her, but fails, the bell rings, it is the voice of God and the man turns away, repents, despairs for his misery. She quickly rears backwards, retraces her steps, but Janet returns to shore flees torn, he pursues her, begs her forgiveness, begs her in every way. He follows her in that desperate flight to the city, buys her a bunch of flowers, loves her and rediscovers it. His wife is inconsolable, even inside a coffee shop that is a metaphysical space. He cries until a marriage is crossed on the street.

Janet holds the flowers to the chest, they are the two real spouses, they enter inside the church and attend the celebration. The priest asks “will you love her”? And George from the last row answers yes to his woman, and cries, holding her to him. “Forgive me”, the bells ring, love triumphs, God overcomes evil.

As two newlyweds the two leave the church, a special effect transforms the city streets into a flower garden. It’s time to celebrate, the two enter a shaving salon, it’s modern, unisex, a successful saleswoman already appears as a pin-up of the 50s, trying to seduce the man who refuses the approach. His wife in the meantime he shuns the advances of another man, the two lovers leave the salon and decide to be portrayed in a photograph, a luxury at the time. The simplicity of this love is highlighted when the couple drops a small Nike Venus and believes it has taken off its head. It is the triumph of candor, of good over evil, the annihilation of progress that is perdition.

The sun has set, it was a beautiful day, the lovers return by boat, they still want to live that joy until midnight. The lake is calm, until suddenly that peace is broken by a violent summer storm. The waves are scary, the boat is in their mercy, and with it the fate of the two. The scary night takes hold of the lives of the two lovers, while Margaret in her room imagines George while killing his wife. The man remembers the twig of reeds and ties him to Janet’s body. The boat is destroyed, the two are lost in the waves. Miraculously the strong man finds himself alone, on the rocks, he is alive. He searches for his wife, he is in despair, he can not find her. The whole village rushes, Margaret who hears the screams joins the parade and hidden spy in the branches throughout the scene. “He did it,” thinks Margart, who sees the man struggling in the crowd as he returns to the water to look for his Janet. He finds her, floating on the water among the bamboo reeds like an Ophelia kissed by death. The country is in turmoil due to the disgrace, the annihilated man returns home, the scene is moving. Margaret joins him to celebrate, but George almost kills her, and she flees scared away from that country to return to the hell of the city. When everything appears lost, irremediable as only death can be, here a new light arises, and draws a cross again on the empty thalamus. The men of the village almost break through the door, who in triumph carry the body of his Janet from George: she is alive! The two hug each other in the most beautiful hugs, the sun rises, love triumphs.

“1968“: sounds like the title of a fairy tale with nostalgic outlines. In general, a revolution suggests heroic undertakings, if the rebels are young people who share ideals all over the world, presenting themselves with a disruptive and scandalous look, then it is explained why, after 50 years, the “1968” is still attractive as the most transgressive rock star. From Rome to Paris, from Japan to the United States, the street was the new meeting place where for the first time, in addition to the ideals, there was a streetwear expression of opposition to the bourgeois class. Together with the eskimo, the clark and the miniskirt, new words were spread like “Matusa” and “Capellone”, to identify with contempt the old and the new way of appearing. While rock played the march of that generation in revolt, the coolest trends came from the East, from the black culture and even from the moon: the fringes of the American Indians, the Safari look by Yves Saint Laurent, the Space Age signed Courrèges . Scented by Patchouli, this army of love and protest prepared for Woodstock, the concert event that the following year would mark the history of the costume, also decreeing the defeat of so many utopias.

However, there are several aspects that make ’68 a significant year for the profound social and anthropological transformations implemented, including a sexual revolution that has seen the emergence of prêt-à-porter and unisex dress in fashion. A new form of appearing, which since then has multiple identities, reaching us in unexpected forms: men and women today wear interchangeable clothes and the appearance for the two sexes tends to be more and more similar. The poncho, garment symbol of revolutionary students, is now a classic in fashion, the word “capellone” is obsolete, politicians may not wear a tie and women of all ages can give up their bra and wear a miniskirt. The “Love & Peace” motto continues to appear on Tye-Dye bleached t-shirts, the street has ceased to be a place of exchange of ideologies among young people, to become the background of a selfie, but it’s the street the place in which, since ’68, trends have developed that often become fashions.

from 68s in Paris

students in Italy

studentsin Paris

students protest in Paris

Mexico protest in ’68

“Matusa” record from Italy

Flower Power protest

Flower Power Revolution

Fashion Protest

Eskimo It was a coat worn by young revolutionaries

from the Summer of Love

new male aesthetics

Look from Woodstok in 1969

Unisex Hippie fashion from 1968

Same garments from men and women

Nowadays unisex fashion

Yves Saint Laurent Safari Look: today and yesterday

Dior 2018: the symbols of peace are back in fashion on the sweatshirts, which however lose the bright colors